


Bellflowers

by i_am_not_a_bird



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: But I will go down with this ship, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Legends: Darkstalker characters, Vague, tbh I don't even really know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21782428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_not_a_bird/pseuds/i_am_not_a_bird
Summary: There is a new dragon Whiteout has met.
Relationships: Whiteout/Clearsight (Wings of Fire)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Bellflowers

**Author's Note:**

> An extension of my Whiteout/Clearsight drabble from the collection. Here's the link if you'd like to read it (https://archiveofourown.org/works/17925143/chapters/47078713), but it's essentially just a very compacted, 200-word version of this fic. Also spoilery, if something that's as vague and all over the place as this could even have spoilers.

Whiteout rarely ever meets new dragons. Not officially, not with all the proper introductions and the getting-to-know-you questions and the awkward attempts at conversation. No, Whiteout is perfectly happy to go floating by in her own little star-speckled world, away from people that always end up confusing and hurting her.

But there is a new dragon Whiteout has met, a dragon that is almost indescribable. She is wonderful. She is a light misting rain, the kind where you open your window to feel the droplets but end up being swept away by the rainy-day smell on the air. She is a sky full of stars, a blanket of ebony worry swimming with pinpricks of hopeful light that are so achingly beautiful Whiteout just can't handle it. Her smile is the color of bellflowers, and when she catches her eyes, Whiteout breathes in the glorious blue.

She is an oasis of this color, of the bellflower blue. Every breath in, Whiteout can smell it, as lovely a scent as the sweetest rose, but somehow better. Because unlike the rose, it belongs to  _ Clearsight _ , and Whiteout thinks she might just be the slightest bit in love with her. Certainly she has never felt anything quite like this before. She feels like she's floating whenever she sees Clearsight, like she's on top of the world and with an open view of the stars. The blue of her smile is calm, relaxed, like sleeping in on a rainy day wrapped in a blanket of azure, but also tantalizing and intoxicating, like maybe Whiteout would be willing to do anything or go anywhere as long as she could look over and be caught the electricity of her gaze.

Whiteout barely knows her. Realistically, Whiteout barely knows anyone, because other dragons seem to be able to just understand each other in a way she has never quite managed to, but even in comparison to the others, she had really only just met Clearsight. And already she can tell that she is a dragon whose brain is always going, always whirring, always knitting timelines together. Watching her mind working is like watching the most fascinating puzzle being together, but from a good distance away. Whiteout is fuzzy on the details of what's actually going on, but some unconscious part of her knows in some way that Clearsight is thinking hard, weaving through the timelines, trying to figure out the best course of action. Because she always, always wants what is best for everyone. That is the most admirable thing about her.

And the rest of it, the rest of the feeling, Whiteout just can't describe. She wants to be with her. She wants to be around her, breathing her air, feeling the blue of her smile. (Her smile is the kind of sweet that Whiteout imagines could make flowers grow.) When she's not around, Whiteout thinks of her, and of how badly she wants to hold her, and how much it feels like she's going  _ home _ to hear her sweet voice. 

More than anything, Whiteout wants to get to know her. Not as the dragon Darkstalker was destined for, not as the cursed prophet drowning in the timelines, but as Clearsight, as  _ herself _ .

But Whiteout does not have the option of ever being with Clearsight. Clearsight is Darkstalker's now, and, for all Whiteout knows, forever. Even if Whiteout could be patient, could float along the waves of blue, the future is all a haze to her. It is not crystal clear like it is for Darkstalker, and it is not as expansive and constantly threading like it is for Clearsight. All she can see is that some point it will come to an end, this blue, blue sea, in a crashing, devastating waterfall, bringing everything Whiteout loves down with it but leaving her alive. She does not know what will happen after that. She does not know if she will ever see her brother again, or her family, or Clearsight, that beautiful dragon who smells of bellflower blue and who somehow, somewhere, she loves. She simply does not know.

***

Because Whiteout apparently doesn't get enough rain-scent and cotton clouds in her life, she finds images of Clearsight in her dreams. Sometimes she sees her in ways she has appeared to her before; in that distant, absent, preoccupied manner, concerned with her thoughts of the future and little else. Sometimes Whiteout is allowed to meet dream-Clearsight's eyes, whorls and whorls of night layered on top of that familiar bellflower blue, so close that for a moment she can allow herself to believe that it's real. She has felt that kind of full attention from Clearsight once or twice in real life, and it's addicting. Almost debilitating. It's those kinds of dreams that wreck her the most. 

Whiteout has never felt longing like this before. It eats her up inside. She's always wanted things, of course: wanted her parents to stop arguing with each other, wanted assurance that her father's soul is okay, wanted to understand the little green continent that her family lives on instead of being caught up in how overwhelming and terrifying it is to be here. But this is different. This it the kind of  _ wanting _ that picks her apart into pieces and leaves her helplessly stranded out on the pointy rocks for the crows to eat. This is the kind of wanting she doesn't know how to bear.

And she doesn't understand it. She knows Clearsight has flaws-- every dragon has flaws, including herself, as Whiteout has come to the disappointing realization-- and she knows, realistically, she shouldn't want Clearsight in this way. Whiteout is solitary by nature, and Clearsight herself is very deeply entangled in her own thoughts, so desperately refusing to live in the present and in the real world. But Clearsight has a danger, a fire, a fierce streak buried somewhere beneath that could easily blow up in Whiteout’s face. There is no reason Whiteout would mix with someone who is so similarly withdrawn and yet so explosive all at once. 

Whiteout has always told herself she wants someone who is willing to be in the present with her, explain things to her, help her make sense of the world, and yet give her space when she needs it.

Clearsight is none of these things, and everything Whiteout has ever wanted, and she hates her for it, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

***

Time slogs on. Whiteout's feelings ebb and flow. At times, she can almost fool herself into thinking she is not in love with Clearsight, and at times she can't ever believe she would think that.

Does Whiteout want to touch her?

Maybe. No. She thinks she might. All she knows is that once upon a time on a blue sunset, Clearsight had sat close to her on the couch, and it felt arbitrarily nice, her rainy-day scales pressed up against Whiteout's. The kind of nice Whiteout remembers in a sort of aching way. But that doesn't have to mean anything.

Does Whiteout want to be by her side?

Definitely. Although, Whiteout wants to protest, it doesn't have to be in a romantic sense. Whiteout wants to spend time with all of her friends, naturally. (Not that she has very many of those. It's pretty much just her family and Clearsight.)

Would Whiteout be willing to spend the rest of eternity looking into her eyes? Without a doubt on that one.

But that doesn't make her weird. That doesn't mean she still has feelings for the dragon or anything. Clearsight's eyes are like pools of dark rainwater, or the echoes of far-away planets, or moonlight on a field of blue flowers. When they catch the light, they glow like sapphires, and when she's angry, they're storm clouds bursting with thunder. Looking into them... It feels like Clearsight is allowing Whiteout to share a small piece of her soul, a little window into her inner workings, for just a moment.

Life would be so much easier without her, but does that mean Whiteout doesn't like her? Or that she likes her too much?

She doesn't want this. She doesn't really know what she wants anymore-- she's in far too deep for that-- but she doesn't want this constant worry. This churning in her stomach.

Maybe she wants Clearsight to know how she feels, and to be with her in the way Clearsight is supposed to be with Darkstalker, and for her to hold her and for Whiteout to see the stars reflected in her eyes and a blue sun dancing in her voice.

Maybe she wants to never see her again, to never feel the knots in her stomach, and to never have to deal with  _ caring _ about her again. Never have to care about her at all.

Maybe all Whiteout wants is to know how she feels about Clearsight.

Because somewhere along the line she's lost that. She used to be so certain, in the light of Clearsight's bellflower warmth, and now she's muddled and lost. She's losing her control. She has no idea what's coming, but she knows that terrible, impending, blurry waterfall, is accelerating towards her. And once it happens, her life will be a confusing mess of pieces she will have to pick up herself.

***

Whiteout was ready to say she was over her. For a moment there, she really did believe it.

But it's probably not possible to be over someone and to feel this hurt inside whenever you think of them, or to feel so light and happy whenever you see them smile, or to want to hold them, and to touch them, this so very badly.

Whiteout keeps on thinking about a very specific moment the night before, during the party, moments before her brother's invulnerability was set out on display, where she looked up and she caught Clearsight's eyes. Clearsight was relaxed and unrestrained in a way she normally wasn't, and it had to do with the lies Darkstalker had woven into those moonstone earrings. When she had picked that from her brother’s mind later on, a kind of irrational rage had filled her up at the thought that he could just manipulate someone as good inside as Clearsight was like that. 

But last night, she didn’t know. All Whiteout knew was that there was a moment where Clearsight was laughing and the light caught for eyes and for the briefest second, anything seemed possible. For a moment, Whiteout could let herself slip into a reality where she had no cares, no responsibility, no fear at all, only the light in her bellflower eyes. And in that world, nothing else exists beside Clearsight. No worries, no problems, and certainly no extraneous soulmates.

Whiteout wants that moment to last forever. She wants to always be able to look over and see the light in Clearsight's eyes and know that they will be okay in that sea of azure. She wants to feel like maybe it isn't so impossible that she will find the blue-tinted rainbow at the end of that dream, that the timelines will knit together in favor of them. And she wants to feel like maybe even if it isn't possible, it doesn't really matter in the end, because she can always look over and see her love's bellflower eyes glinting in the light and know that it is going to be okay in the end.

***

Sometimes Whiteout feels like she will never be able to erase all the traces of Clearsight from her life. Like every piece of music, every romantic scroll, every absent-minded doodle, it will all be tainted with the memories of that terrible  _ wanting _ . Like she will not be able to think of love without thinking of her.

She knows things need time. She knows she can get over her emotions, move on, let Darkstalker have this. She knows Clearsight doesn't really like her.

But her terrible, wildest hopes and dreams, like a frantic bird, are always chasing, always flying after the possibility that Clearsight  _ does _ like her, more than Darkstalker, that she's always liked her, that Whiteout may one day feel what it's like to be with her and to touch her and to be  _ allowed _ to do all that. Even if it's not now, even it they were never at the right time, even if it's a million years in the future and they’re a million years older and the terrible wanting of today seems like a distant dream of the past, Whiteout wants to believe it's possible. Because anything seems possible when she looks over at Clearsight and sees her laughing, like the night of the party. Sees the light catch her beautiful bellflower eyes.

***

She thinks she’s over Clearsight. After all that has happened, it makes sense to care more about her family, no matter how enticing Clearsight’s bellflower eyes are. No matter how much Whiteout wants to make her stop hurting. And so she makes herself stop.

***

And then, just like that, her sea of blues and purples came to a grinding halt. In one swift and terrible move, everything fell in on itself, barraged by a blizzard, torn about by snowy winds. She can't see. She can't breathe. She thinks she hears screaming.

Darkstalker is gone. Mother and Father are gone. Her family is gone. One of them, she had the privilege of watching the life bleed out of, droplet by droplet, but the other two were lost before she even knew they were gone, and she will never see any of them, ever again, no matter what she does. Because there is nothing she can do to get her family back.

Can't see. Can't breathe. Screaming.

Mother was gone. Father's rage had grown into a blinding fury that sliced open his stomach and let his organs fall out onto the stage. Darkstalker was trapped in a coffin of stone where no one could reach him ( _ not for thousands of years until the fourth moon comes _ , her brain told her, as if that could possibly mean anything to her). And her blue spider of the woven timelines, her lovely bellflower dragon, her  _ Clearsight _ , was leaving as well. Before Whiteout had even earned the chance to call Clearsight  _ hers _ .

She had thought she was over her. She had thought her main goal in life was to keep her family together, not to pine over someone she couldn't have. But her family has fallen apart down the inescapable, always fast-approaching waterfall, and nothing is as it once was. The only constant in her life is Clearsight. Maybe that’s how it’s always been.

And so what? Maybe she is over her. But even if she is, even if she doesn't think about her anymore, even if she is completely fine existing in a world without her (which she is very much not), Whiteout knows that any of that could change in an instant. Of course it could, when it comes to a dragon like Clearsight.

She's just so sweet, so kind, so pretty, and Whiteout would drop everything for her. Even if life moves on, even if Clearsight goes to Pantala, all it would take is an ounce of hope for Whiteout to give up all those empty promises and to hurt like this again. To want so desperately to feel the electric blue of her touch or the addictive taste of her attention, to fall once again for her beautiful bellflower eyes. Because no matter how much she says it, no matter how much she believes she feels it, no matter how little she thinks about Clearsight, she is not over her. Whiteout would always follow Clearsight to the ends of the earth, if that was where her wings took over. That part has never changed.

So she would go to Pantala, if that was where Clearsight wanted to, and her heart would be her compass, that azure smile her map. Whiteout had always envisioned the future as a glorious, icy blue, Mother and Father reunited, Darkstalker's storm kept permanently at bay. And just thinking about how close she had been brought that feeling back, that  _ can't see, can't breathe, hear screaming  _ feeling.

But she likes this new bellflower blue, too. Her home had burnt to the ground along with her heart, but she has a new heart now, and Clearsight has always felt like home in her own way.

***

She is draped in a blanket of blue. It fills her mouth with the taste as she lays side by side with her love, and she can hear no other color. Her senses are clouded with the bellflowers.

For the first time in a long time, perhaps longer than she is willing to admit to herself, Whiteout feels a complete and total calm.

"Whiteout?" she hears Clearsight murmur.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for coming here with me," she says simply.

Whiteout buries her nose further under Clearsight's wings.  _ Rain-scent and cotton clouds _ , she thinks. She has Clearsight's full attention now, unlike back then when she could only ever dream of such a thing. And the strange part is, it's still just as addictive. She would be content to stay there with Clearsight for forever, if that was allowed, and never get tired of her. In all the years Whiteout has known her, she has never gotten tired of her and her bellflower smile. Not even when she tried.

“Of course,” she whispers back.


End file.
